A June 2025 conversation between me and Philipp Kobald, a podcaster with a startlingly similar background to my own: business, spirituality, mountaineering, psychology, and education.We talk about all of these things incidentally, but float above them on a layer of spiritual concern. This is as it should be. All things should have spiritual foundations.https://holisticcircle.org/blogs/news/what-a-mountaineer-turned-therapist-learned-about-healing-while-hanging-on-cliff-s-edgeWhat the video version on YouTube:Philipp was impressed with our conversation and wrote a lengthy summary of it. Here’s what he said, which is posted on his website.A Raw Look at Inner Exploration with Lincoln StollerBy Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AIwww.HolisticCircle.org©2025 HolisticCircleDon’t Try This at Home, Unless You’re Ready to Change Your LifeIf your idea of self-work involves scented candles and journaling prompts, Lincoln Stoller might make you feel like you’ve brought a foam sword to a gladiator match. Here is a man who free-soloed cliffs, consumed ayahuasca in the Americas, studied quantum physics, and now — presumably with both feet firmly back on the ground — helps people explore their inner landscapes as a psychotherapist and brain trainer.And yet, despite his death-defying CV, what Stoller champions is not adrenaline. It’s honesty. Brutal, inconvenient, edge-of-the-precipice honesty. The kind that tells you your brain’s trying to communicate via dreams, and you’re ghosting it.Early in the episode, host Philipp Kobald finds unexpected common ground with Stoller. Both grew up immersed in the raw beauty of high-altitude landscapes, and their mutual love for mountaineering becomes more than a metaphor — it’s a shared language. As Philipp puts it, mountains teach you honesty in a way no therapist ever could. One wrong move, one dishonest thought about your limits, and nature will remind you who’s really in charge. It’s not just a nice bonding moment — it’s a grounding force for everything that follows.This was no spiritual sugar cube of a chat. Hosted with his usual gentle mischief by Kobald, Spiritual Conversation (produced by HolisticCircle) went spelunking into the caverns of mountaineering, neuroscience, psychedelics, and the weird nightly theatre of dreams. Spoiler: you’ll never look at that one recurring dream about losing your teeth the same way again.The Mountaineer Who Fell Into the MindStoller’s journey from cliffs to counseling reads like an indie film that wins awards in Berlin. After scaling literal mountains, he took a nosedive into physics, then fell sideways into shamanism and psychedelics. Somewhere between salvia and neurofeedback therapy, he stumbled upon the realization that the biggest climbs are internal.His spiritual awakening didn’t arrive via incense or a perfectly curated yoga playlist. It came via the moment he realized that free-soloing thousands of feet up a mountain without a rope was not only inadvisable — it was stupid. Or in his words, “If everyone did what I did, half the planet would be gone.”Now, instead of chasing summits, he helps others descend into themselves, one deeply uncomfortable truth at a time. Yes, there are ropes involved. Emotional ones. Tension lines strong enough to support people tumbling through grief, depression, anxiety — or just the existential swamp we call modern life.Dreams Are Not Oracles, They’re AuditsIf you’re still clinging to the notion that dreams are cute little metaphors for your waking life (“I was flying — so I must be seeking freedom!”), Stoller is here to torch your dream dictionary. To him, dreams are not messages. They’re more like audit reports from your subconscious: overwhelming, disjointed, and rarely flattering.Dreams, he explains, are your mind’s attempt to stitch together nonsense into a meaningful pattern. It’s your internal cartographer mapping chaos. And no, that flying dream doesn’t mean you’re destined for greatness — it probably means you’re about to nosedive into your own limitations.Rather than decode dreams like horoscopes, Stoller suggests experiencing them — like stormy weather. Forget searching for meaning in a talking rabbit. Ask instead: where am I holding back? What am I unwilling to see?Healers, Beware the Enlightenment Industrial ComplexStoller doesn’t mince words when it comes to healers and seekers outsourcing their intuition to institutions — especially educational ones. Take his view on bringing “spirituality” into classrooms. It sounds like a lovely idea until you realize, as he says, that schools already do a marvellous job of crushing curiosity without getting their hands on your dreams too.The push to include dreamwork and introspection in schools? He calls it out for what it could become: another bureaucratic attempt to standardize the ineffable. A therapist, he argues, earns your trust through honesty, not a state-approved certificate. Especially when working with children.For healers, it’s a sobering reminder: your gift isn’t data-driven. It’s soul-driven. And it doesn’t need to be approved by a panel of government-funded mindfulness consultants.Brains, Rewired and RebelliousNo, you can’t rewire your personality in 90 days, despite what the neuroscience influencers with unnaturally white teeth might promise. Stoller dismantles that claim with the same steady conviction he used to dismantle crampons after risky climbs.He explains the brain not as a machine to be programmed but as a living ecosystem. Sure, you can improve focus, reduce anxiety, and enhance sensitivity using neurofeedback (which he’s done for a decade). But change isn’t a vending machine. You don’t insert affirmations and expect enlightenment to drop out the bottom.Instead, he urges clients to work with what’s real: their own perception, dreams, and failings. Particularly the failings. Those are gold mines — if you dare to dig.If You Survive, You’re a Better TherapistThe most jaw-dropping moment? Stoller comparing counseling to mountaineering. Yes, therapy, too, can be a high-risk sport. The emotional terrain is jagged. The people you’re trying to help will, eventually, shoot their worst at you. And your job, as a healer, isn’t to flinch.“You want to be hurt,” he says. Not in a martyrdom way, but because if you can’t be moved, you can’t be useful.The goal isn’t detachment. It’s resilience. If you can take emotional bullets, process them, and still help someone climb their own inner cliff, you’re not just a healer — you’re a bloody miracle.A Word to the Would-Be Dream WarriorsStoller’s book on dreaming isn’t some fluffy guide to decoding your inner unicorn. It’s more like a firestarter for your unconscious. He offers a four-part method: incubate the dream, wake with intention, practice lucid dreaming with humility, and use daydreams consciously like emotional reconnaissance.But mostly, he warns: be prepared. Dreams aren’t cute. They’re not safe. They will drag you through hell if that’s what your psyche needs. And if you’re doing it right, you won’t just wake up remembering them — you’ll wake up changed.There’s No Finish Line—Just Deeper HonestyThe conversation ends where all good quests do: not with answers, but with better questions. How do we become honest enough to heal? How do we climb the mountains within without losing our footing — or worse, becoming unbearable?Lincoln Stoller doesn’t offer a branded solution. What he offers is a challenge. To go further. Think deeper. Feel more. And maybe — just maybe — ditch the rope and trust yourself for once.If you’re curious to watch the full descent into mountaintops, dreams, and mental jungles, the Spiritual Conversation with Philipp Kobald and Lincoln Stoller is waiting for you on the @HolisticCircle YouTube channel. Wear a helmet. And maybe bring a notebook.By Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AIwww.HolisticCircle.org@2025 HolisticCircle by Philipp Kobald This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”— attributed to Albert EinsteinLoveOn the face of it, love is an immature emotion but there are various kinds, so I must be more specific. There are different things to love and ways to love, and some are more enlightened than others. A person can love from different aspects of their being, and each of us expresses these aspects to different degrees.There’s physical love which is generally thought to mean sex but really means having a physical connection. Physical love develops a sense of peace and trust based on being physically present and mutually supporting. If you live with someone and rely on them and they are suddenly removed, there is a fracturing of a physical bond.Intellectual love, which doesn’t sound compelling, is a real thing. It means more than just being agreeable. It can mean supportive, enduring, and reliable. If you’re an intellectual person and you strive to create a world that makes sense, then being in partnership with someone who understands you and supports your understanding creates an important bond. It’s fair to call this love because breaking this bond will cause heartbreak.But it’s emotional love that we think of first because this is the most common, dependent, deceived, attractive, rewarding, and frequently denied form of love. And it is all of these things not because it’s the most difficult, but because it’s generated by one person’s fantasies. And while there is nothing wrong with fantasy, as it’s a necessary part of creative thinking, it serves a temporary function.HateHate is also an immature feeling. By hate I don’t mean simply an adversarial attitude, I mean a mental obsession. A specific, negative projection about a person, place, or thing. And it’s not the negativity that’s immature—there may be good reasons to be negative—it’s hate’s obsessive and unexamined nature that makes it immature.Hate can also be physical, intellectual, or emotional, but these are not simple opposites to love. You may hate being in pain, and that’s a real hate. The simple presence of certain people may cause you anguish. The longer you remain in the presence of these people, even if nothing is said or done, the more anguish you’ll feel. At some point, your hatred will grade into anger.I’m not sure about intellectual hatred but it seems possible, it’s just not something I can easily identify. It would be an overwhelming, intellectual negativity that clouds your thinking. It would not be emotional.My attitude toward people who endorse slavery is something like intellectual hatred. It’s an antipathy that’s cold and calculating but not passionate. Manipulative people who lie to achieve their ends trigger similar feelings. Donald Trump elicits intellectual hatred and this seems to be his intention. But when the feeling becomes passionate, it becomes emotional hatred.Emotional hatred is what we’re familiar with. This is the red hot feeling of being personally, physically threatened. Politicians incite intellectual hatred because it always spills over into emotional hatred, and it’s emotional hatred that turns people into puppets.Whoever controls your emotional hatred controls you, and if no one controls your hatred, then the hatred itself controls you. Your hatred can be directed to motivate you to war, or your hatred can motivate you to violence. It’s interesting that despite being one of our strongest motivators, hatred accomplishes nothing more than creating distance. You’d think there would be easier ways to accomplish this.ProjectionProjection is simply applying an attitude as a way of description. It’s a way to illustrate what you feel, but it’s not a property of the situation. This means that what you project only endures as long as you continue to project it. It is not something you’ve recognized as part of a relationship, it’s how you’ve decided to connect the dots. The dots may be real, but the way you connect them probably is not.We disparage projection as false and pretentious, but we should appreciate its positive role. There is a reason that we project our love and hatred on situations. It begins a process of development. But rather than learning how to use projection as part of a process, we’re taught to consider these projections as accurate.We believe our first impressions or the first impressions offered by authorities. What could be a good starting point, and one that's an essential step in creative thinking, becomes an undeveloped end point. As a result, we learn to be stupid.Why Do We Do This?You have to imagine something before you can build an understanding, and once you have an understanding, you can start to take steps to strengthen it. Just as you trace an image on a blank canvas before you begin painting, so also you project your ideas on a situation before you begin thinking. What you project becomes an opportunity that you can invest in.But an idea is not a realization. An image of a sculpture is far from the finished work. Clearly, you need the image before you begin. Without a basic image you’ll build in the wrong place, or you’ll start by putting a roof on the ground. Projection is necessary, it’s something one should learn to do in childhood through play. It’s something that must be refined.What We MissHaving an idea does not tell you how to put it into practice. Taking prescribed actions doesn’t tell you why you’re doing them. There is a step between conception and conviction that’s missing when we educate people poorly.Telling people what to think without fostering the growth of their bodies, minds, or emotions is a central failing of “modern” culture. By modern, I mean the money economy in which people work only to accumulate security.If you never learn how to take the love you project and create the relationship you imagine, then you end up with hollow, unsustainable relationships. If you never learn how to take the hate you project to fix the bad situations you imagine, then you squander your energies destroying environments that are necessary for long-term survival.Unrefined love is an undiscerning acceptance which fosters all sorts of unhealthy behaviors. Unrefined hatred is an undiscerning rejection which, like a forest fire, burns everything. We find both of these in the natural world, but they are part of larger processes.Nectar and forest fires have their place but they are parts of processes that require discernment and endurance. Membranes and boundaries protect resources. Thorns and toxins keep exploiters away.We must be similarly discerning with our destruction. We must inflate and examine our projections to see our ideas more accurately. Just as a movie projects a 2-dimensional image that we expand to three or more dimensions, we need to learn to do this with our imperfect projections.How to Do BetterThere are many pieces between initial ideas and completed constructions. These are the pieces that connect our imaginations with our practical skills. We send people to school in an attempt to teach this to them. Schooling succeeds to a small degree, but fails to a large degree. We learn how to hold a job, but we don’t learn how to foster love or channel hate. We don’t learn how to learn.“Education is what people do to you. Learning is what you do to yourself.”—Joichi Ito, entrepreneurThe result is what we see in the “modern” world: failed marriages, broken families, global poverty, and endless war. All of these are failures in realizing human ideas. Not “ideals,” as those are the goals; “ideas,” as those are the means.Most people don’t recognize that these laudable processes—relationship, family, community, and culture—begin failing as soon as we move beyond our immature conceptions of them. We project these conceptions on the world and invest our 2-dimensional understanding. No one is teaching us to do better.A successful marriage takes more than two people consenting to an illusion. A successful nation requires more than one person declaring himself dictator. You cannot react to failure by becoming depressed. Failure offers both losses and lessons and must be seen as a new starting point. In each of these cases what’s lacking is skill. How does one get it?It’s hard to develop an aptitude that was supposed to develop when you were young. People who were traumatized or abused as children were denied an important part of their development. Many normal people get angry and reactive when obstructed, rather than becoming curious and resilient.Young people approach problems with body, mind, and emotion at a time when they have support to play, explore, fail, and experiment. Real world problems require a complex combination of skills that cannot be broken down into book-learning form. This applies to academic subjects but applies even more to relationships, families, and cultures. These are full spectrum problems.Once we’re adults, we no longer have that support, and we cannot engage in that kind of learning. As adults, our time is limited and there is little opportunity for full spectrum learning. We’re taught instructions without learning skills. The result is the collapse of relationships, families, nations, and cultures.One solution is clear: discard what you know and start over. This sounds silly, but this is what learning always entails. Forget what you love or hate and relearn these things. To do this you must find the time and resources.This is a prescription for re-schooling, and that makes sense for intellectual learning, but what about physical and emotional learning? The school version of physical education was always a joke, and emotional education never existed. The intellectual part is the least important because it’s the easiest. It’s the other skills we lack.My work as a counselor involves helping people develop emotional skills. I can say at least this much: don’t let your time be taken from you and wasted in emotionally unrewarding ways. Don’t let negative people and attitudes control you. Build on healthy foundations. I will try to be more specific later.Speak to me love, hate, and projections by scheduling a free call:https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/schedule15 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

In this deeply layered conversation, quantum physicist and clinical counselor Dr. Lincoln Stoller. joins me to explore the terrain between science, and spirit. From neural training, and anxiety to the unseen forces that shape identity. Lincoln opens up about parenting, failure, and the work of becoming who you are. It's a raw, unscripted look into the psychology of creativity, and what it takes to truly grow. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” — Charles AddamsIntelligence QuotientIQ is a measure of a person’s mental ability to perform functions considered valuable. The metric was created at a time when eugenics was on the rise, and people were being ranked according to their race, age, gender, and cultural background.In the early 20th century psychological semi-sciences were being applied to education and social engineering. The goal was to identify people most likely to outperform in a modern, Western society. IQ is useful in predicting how a person will perform on tests administered in schools.IQ is not so much measured by IQ tests as it is defined by them. These tests do measure something. A person’s IQ is stable over time as long as they don’t try to improve their skills on these tests, but the tests are neither comprehensive nor intrinsic. You can improve your IQ score with training.Those people who do the best on IQ tests are those people who think linearly, which is like the questions on the tests, and who respond receptively to being told they need to answer questions. The questions on IQ tests are narrow-minded and specifically focus on circumscribed, deductive thinking.Creative people perform below what is expected of them because they are inclined to think differently, which means they distort the questions they’re asked. People rarely value another person’s distortion of their questions.

https://youtu.be/1b47iyAJrowith Ivan PalominoTransforming Work Culture | Passionate about Human Development | Tech EntrepreneurJoin two expats, me a New Yorker in Canada and Ivan a Peruvian in Switzerland, as we explore how one authentically changes. You can choose the benefits and the risks but you cannot choose not to change. To not change is to decay.Ivan writes:The world of self-development is a bustling marketplace of ideas, promising everything from financial abundance to inner peace. But how do we, as individuals seeking genuine growth, discern the truly valuable from the merely seductive? This question recently guided my conversation with Lincoln Stoller, a remarkable mind whose journey spans quantum mechanics, anthropology, and psychotherapy. Our discussion, recorded for the Growth Hacking Culture podcast, peeled back the layers of popular self-help narratives, revealing a nuanced perspective that is both deeply personal and rigorously science-informed.The Allure and Ambiguity of Self-DevelopmentIt's no secret that the self-development industry is booming. Companies alone are forecasted to spend over $80 billion by 2032 on this very pursuit. As individuals, we are bombarded with information and voices, all promising keys to a "best life." But as Lincoln aptly put it, the line between helpful advice and "purely b******t" can be thin.My personal interest in this topic stems from grappling with popular self-development teachings that often intertwine concepts like quantum physics and the law of attraction. Are these genuine connections, or just clever marketing? Lincoln, with his doctorate in quantum mechanics, offered a refreshing take: it’s often about metaphor. Imagination, he argues, is crucial for conceiving something before it can be made real. While many scientists object to what they see as the "bastardization of science in the name of spirituality," Lincoln believes they might be missing the power of metaphor. Science, particularly fields like quantum mechanics where even physicists struggle with full comprehension, can provide new frameworks for understanding. The goal isn't necessarily factual accuracy, but rather to disrupt old ideas and open the mind to new possibilities – a process, he noted, akin to certain methods of hypnosis where confusion can lead to a state of receptive trance.The Elusive Red Line: When Metaphor Becomes MisleadingThis brings us to a critical ethical question: where is the "red line"? When does the use of metaphor in self-development cross into misleading advice? I shared my concern about certain gurus who present scientific concepts, like quantum mechanics, not as metaphors for understanding but as justifications for their own lack of understanding, blurring the lines for their audience.Lincoln acknowledged the desire for a clear boundary, but painted a more complex picture. He observed that "most arguments are kind of frivolous and shallow," with few people truly deeply understanding any argument. He cited the fascinating dynamic between figures like J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm, where their intellectual exchanges, though stimulating, were often based on differing conceptual languages. He recalled observing that attendees at Krishnamurti centers often celebrated these figures not for their profound arguments, but simply for their celebrity status, riding on their "coat tails" to validate their own beliefs. This phenomenon, he argued, extends to society at large, where we often seek political opinions from movie stars or athletes, valuing celebrity over genuine expertise.The "law of attraction" served as a prime example of this complex interplay. While Lincoln called it "complete BS" in its supernatural claims, he also conceded that "there are some elements that are true." Focusing on something, he explained, naturally leads to increased awareness, more opportunities, and a deeper understanding. It's not paranormal, but rather "very obvious." He drew a parallel to religion, which, despite its inherent flaws and potential for "false knowledge," can be a powerful tool for fostering agreement and cooperation among people. His provocative question resonated deeply: "What's the alternative? Is everyone going to study everything and become experts? No, people don't care." This led him to a pragmatic conclusion: if you want to be useful, you must speak in ways that resonate with people, using metaphors and analogies they understand, even if the underlying concepts are, in a purely scientific sense, "abstract painting." The better judgment criterion, he suggested, is "what you accomplish or what you're trying to accomplish and not what you're ruining or misusing."The Responsibility to Intervene: Navigating Harmful BeliefsDespite the fluidity of truth in metaphorical contexts, I pressed on, emphasizing that a level of responsibility must exist, especially when beliefs become harmful. If I observe someone engaging in self-destructive behavior due to their beliefs, I feel an obligation to intervene. But where does one draw that line, and do we have the right to interfere with another person's belief system?Lincoln agreed that intervention is warranted when harm is clear. However, the complexities arise in the "gray area" of opinion, where one person's "positive" might be another's "destructive." He drew parallels to the current political landscape, where differing interpretations of reality lead to chaos and shouting, rather than productive discourse. As a therapist, Lincoln finds himself in a unique position to navigate these boundaries. His primary questions for clients are: "Are they injurious to me? Are they injurious to people around them? Are they injurious to themselves?" The answers, he noted, differ in each case. While he is paid to "endure injury" in the form of accusations or challenges from clients, he values the remote nature of his work, which safeguards against misinterpretations of physical interaction. This distance also grants him the freedom to be direct, even to the point of saying, "you're full of s**t," or "that's dangerous." However, he observed that clients who are unwilling to change or accept criticism often "flee." Change, he concluded, is at the heart of the matter, and it's often more effectively achieved by enticement than by direct confrontation. Ultimately, while a "line" exists, its assertion depends heavily on the communication context. In our open-ended conversation, where political or scientific precision wasn't the primary goal, the line was intentionally "vague," allowing for the exploration of disagreements rather than the assertion of rigid viewpoints.The Duty of Exploration: Finding Your Genuine PathMy curiosity then turned to Lincoln's own impressive journey, from "hardcore physics to getting to know the insights of the brains of human being." Is it a universal "duty" for human beings to embrace such openness and exploration? And if so, how can we discern what is genuinely helpful and true in self-development, particularly when we lack comprehensive knowledge to assess every approach?Lincoln acknowledged the difficulty and importance of these questions. The first answer, he suggested, is the hardest to describe: "you have to know what feels right for yourself." This requires a deep commitment to personal values, a "pivot" that guides your choices. It's not a simple duality of agreement or disagreement, but a shared space where concepts can be engaged and enlarged. Confusion, he surprisingly argued, can be a valuable tool, a means to dislodge ingrained mindsets. He highlighted the importance of delving into the "world where things don't make sense," the subconscious realm of dreams, unintentional reactions, memory, and trauma. This "terrain of reason" is where the "foundation" of our being lies, akin to the nutrients beneath a garden's soil. If this foundation is "bad," conflicted, or depressed, then what grows atop it will lack strength and honesty. Working at this deeper, subconscious level, he emphasized, is the most interesting and important area, though also the hardest to access without external support.When pressed for "tricks" to spot genuine self-development, Lincoln offered a counter-intuitive but profound idea: "you have to be ready to fail on any new idea." If you already know exactly what to do with a new concept, it cannot truly be new. Growth requires engaging with the unfamiliar, putting together previously disparate concepts. He championed travel as a powerful tool for enlargement, exposing individuals to new cultures and ideas. However, even reading and socializing can be "stultifying" if confined to the same familiar patterns. The irony, he stated, is that "you know when you don't know." A "fertile area" for growth is often one where you feel a sense of not understanding.Drawing from his own experience in mountain climbing, he explained that learning to discern safe exploration from genuine danger is crucial. He spoke of scaling dangerous cliffs without a rope, a practice that demanded absolute focus and the absence of fear or doubt. While he wasn't traumatized at the time, the memory still brings nightmares decades later, illustrating that the immediate perception of safety doesn't always align with long-term well-being. His advice: "You should be willing to take as much risk as you think is safe and always try to take more." In any technical field, or in life itself, he suggested "biting off more than you can chew," but "not so much that you choke." It's a constant, difficult decision, where "it will always be difficult," but some difficulties are "good" and others "bad." He questioned the relentless pursuit of "greatest competence" in extreme sports, suggesting that it often overshadows genuine learning, becoming a pursuit of ephemeral achievement rather than lasting growth.The Core of Values: An Ongoing JourneyMy most challenging personal struggle, which I shared with Lincoln, lies in identifying my authentic values. In a world saturated with social media and external influences, how do we discern values that truly belong to us, rather than those shaped by societal approval or past experiences?Lincoln confirmed that this is a universal struggle, noting that some questions cannot be answered purely at an intellectual level. Like the question of God's existence, some truths resonate at the level of "faith." He outlined several levels of understanding our values: the intellectual, often proving "hopeless" for these deep questions; the social, where values are shaped by friends and community (he humorously noted his son's "religion" being online video games); and then deeper levels. The "heart" level, where we feel love, concern, or anger, serves as a touchstone for decisions. But the "most interesting" and foundational level for him is the "subconscious," the realm of dreams, unintentional reactions, memory, and trauma.As a counselor, Lincoln works with dreams as a "resource of ambiguity, conflict, chaos, deep feelings, emotional feelings." Being overly rational about dreams, he argued, is unhelpful because they don't conform to reason. This subconscious realm is the "foundation," the "garden" from which our conscious thoughts and actions grow. If this foundation is "bad," lacking honesty or commitment, then everything built upon it will be vulnerable. Working at this deeper level, he emphasized, requires someone who can move beyond pleasantries and social protocols to appreciate personal confusion. He sees the counselor's role as providing a "less biased" voice, a mirror to our inner complexities. He underscored the immense energy and skill required by a good therapist, who might "think five times for each word they speak" to help disentangle a client's "disregulated and conflicted" life. While the financially privileged may have access to more subtle and open-minded help, those in deepest need often lack the resources, creating a profound societal challenge. Ultimately, Lincoln believes that talking, especially when skilled enough to access the subconscious, can be incredibly effective, allowing individuals to glimpse "a deeper reality."Conclusion: Embracing the Messiness of GrowthThis conversation with Lincoln Stoller was a powerful reminder that self-development is rarely a linear, perfectly rational journey. It’s a messy, often uncomfortable, but ultimately deeply rewarding process of exploration. True growth, as he elucidated, involves embracing ambiguity, challenging preconceived notions, and daring to venture into the unknown, even if it means "biting off more than you can chew." It’s about listening not just to external gurus, but to the whispers of our own subconscious, guided by an authentic sense of what feels right, even when the path ahead isn't entirely clear. In a world clamoring for quick fixes, Lincoln's wisdom offers a refreshing and grounded invitation to a more profound and enduring kind of self-discovery. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Introduction to the IntroductionIn an effort to broaden my reach, I’m creating short video introductions that I can post freely, which direct you to the original post. Here’s one for the post Consequences of an Inflamed Mind (podcast $): Exploring the connection between anxiety in the mind and inflammation in the body.If you just want to read the piece, without the audio narration, they click on this link:https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/paywall/consequences-of-an-inflamed-mind-2/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.comAnxiety is the mental aspect of stress. A number of things happen when one’s body is under stress. Some of the most notable changes are hormonal, vascular, and muscular. Increased muscle tension, blood pressure, and the release of cortisol, a hormone that increases blood sugar and suppresses digestion and the immune system.The body is constantly going in and out of balance. Our body expects us to resolve our stress but in a hostile environment the pressures may never abate. The consequences of chronic stress differ with each person, but over the long term stress degrades your health. Here is a list of chronic conditions linked to stress:* Anger, frustration, and hostility* Arthritis* Asthma* Autoimmune diseases* Cardiovascular disease* Chemical and behavioral addictions* Cognitive and executive impairment* Depression* Diabetes* Fatigue* Gastrointestinal disease* Headaches* Insomnia* Obesity* Skin diseases

Robin writes:"What if everything you think you know about healing, mental health, and spirituality... is just the beginning?""In this soul-stirring episode, I’m joined by the brilliant Dr. Lincoln Stoller, clinical counselor, hypnotherapist, and expert in the subconscious mind. Together, we dive deep into the unspoken truths behind counseling, the fluid nature of “mental illness,” and how your hidden motivations could be shaping your entire reality.""Ever feel like there's more to your story, more to you than meets the eye? This conversation will challenge your perceptions, stir your spirit, and awaken a deeper understanding of who you truly are.""You don’t have to be broken to heal, you just need to be willing to explore. Listen in now and discover what’s really waiting beneath the surface of your thoughts…"Join us for this 30-minute discussion of spirituality, counseling, and mental health. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” — Arthur Somers Roche, authorRising ViolenceIn conversations with therapists we’ve noticed a recent drop-off in clients bookings. The curve of this decline seems to be the inverse of the global anxiety created by Donald Trump in world, national, and community affairs. I want to think this through.There is no question that among other things, Mr. Trump is a psychopath. In his case, the main presenting symptoms are hostility, dishonesty, the desire to manipulate, and a need to subjugate.This does not mean all that he says is false, though truth plays little role, but that his intentions are unclear and he tends toward violence. This is not all that extreme a statement since most high profile people have social personality disorders. If you didn’t have a disorder before gaining celebrity, it’s guaranteed that celebrity will create disorder in you.Psychopathy is a common, latent, spectrum disorder. That is to say, it hides until it’s triggered. This behavior is also present in cases of inter-personal and family violence, child abuse, and assault.We excuse people who are not chronic psychopaths, but we should not. We believe psychopathic behavior is a natural response to extreme and unexpected situations. If you believe that it’s okay for people to yell and then fight, or if you occasionally yell and then fight, then this is the limit of your own sanity.“In 2016, more countries experienced violent conflict than at any point in almost 30 years… Countries in the Americas have the worst homicide rates by a wide margin... Extremist groups today have unprecedented access to the general public through the internet… Political instability engenders organised crime…” from A New Era of Conflict and Violence, United Nations 2020 and Beyond (United Nations 2020)Anger, while it always precedes violence, is not the same as violence. There is a limit to how unhinged one can be and still consider oneself sane. Anger, when managed, falls on the sane side of behavior. Violence falls on the insane side, and violence can be verbal as well as physical.DJT is interesting in two respects. First, a violent presentation is his standard personality. And second, this represents most people’s feelings. That is, most people are in a bellicose mood that endorses anti-social behavior.While we like to think that we’re controlling our destiny, it’s just as likely that our destiny is controlling us. That is, DJT may not be causing current events as he is the product of them.Outward and Inward PresentationsAs you approach the limit of your sanity you split into two parts: the outward presentation and the inward feeling. In extreme anxiety, the outward presentation is the fighting response while the inward feeling is fear. Other responses are to flee or faint, but fighting is the empowered response. Fighting is the response you would expect from the population of the USA since they feel themselves to be the entitled owners of world assets.Citizens of the USA have little fear or memory of defeat. It is unfortunate that one’s understanding of defeat usually comes from being defeated, and the USA has few defeats to remember.I feel lucky to have been aware of the defeat of the US in Vietnam and personally experiencing defeat in my mountain climbing ventures. The typical rejection of defeat, as expressed through the media and entertainment industries, creates a poor understanding and unrealistic attitude about actual threats and realistic responses (Nguyen 2021; Philipps 2025).This reflects our unrealistic attitude toward misunderstanding, which we see as personal failure. This reflects our misunderstanding of learning, which we misconstrue as success. Learning is not success; learning is failure to understand. That is axiomatic: you learn by failing to understand. There is no other way to learn.Even our language misleads us as we cannot distinguish between failing to understand and personally failing. As a result, we cannot approach learning correctly but instead think of learning as reward. Just look at the education system that offers rewards not for learning but for repeating. Repeating is not learning. You learn nothing by repeating.Consider a walk through the woods. If you follow the trail then you learn nothing about the woods. All you learn about is the trail. To learn about the woods you must go off the trail. Then you learn about the topography, vegetation, regeneration, and decay. All of these are irrelevant to following the trail unless they fall on it.Fear and LearningThe lesson of Donald Trump and his administration is fear. Fear underlies their whole mindset. It may look like strength in action and single-mindedness but there is no strength to it. It’s entirely fear, as fear is the foundation of anger and violence. And the only thing that you learn from fear is ignorance. You learn how ignorant and powerless you are… unless you’re a psychopath. Psychopaths never learn.Address your anxiety. Call me for a free discussion

In an interview at Bold Journey, Daniel Martinez says, “Finding your purpose is the most beautiful topic I love to talk about in life. I have a deep feeling that it is our life’s purpose to find what that is and to be courageous enough to pursue it.” He’s a musician, I’m a therapist, and we entirely agree. He and I explore this further on his audio and video podcast, Tunez From The Crypt. For the audio+video version, click on the above link to YouTube. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe